


A dead man's tale

by Acnara



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: AU, Child Abuse, Child Murder, Dark!Harry, Death, Dimension Travel, M/M, No Bashing, Stablished Relationship, Torture, and then not that AU, anger and panic do not mix well with this characters, but no main characters, dumbledore just does it for the greater good, more tags will be added, spiders at some point, three shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-05-20 12:27:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6006037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acnara/pseuds/Acnara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is almost a normal Yule winter night when Harry James Potter, 17 year old wizard and future husband of the Dark Lord of Britain finds a portrait of a dead man in one of Hogwarts dark rooms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wise men say

**Author's Note:**

> This was gonna be a one shot... I guess I liked that last line way too much. Anyway, torture in the next chapter, the ranting will raise to M. A lot of bad stuff will happen in the second part of this so I tought I should leave the nice part here.  
> All this came from Sherk 3 and you really should watch that movie because Sherk is just awesome.  
> Also, I have no beta and I'm not a native speaker, so if you see anything that doesn't sound ok please tell me.  
> Thanks to everyone who helped me figure out if death was a good solution to this ramblings of mine.  
> Spoiler alert: it was not.

Harry was angry. No, more than angry. He huffed, his breath leaving his lips in a cloud of white smoke when it came in contact with the cold winter air as he entered the big old doors of Hogwarts, still a bit dizzy from the apparition. Transportation spells had never been his thing, and apparently not amount of practice would ever change that.

He didnt even glance as the two death eaters guarding the school door fell to their knees, greeting him. An annoyed thought crossed his mind when he acknowledged that Voldemort hadn't even had the decency to give those two the night off, even if it was Yule. Harry let slip a soft 'prat' under his breath and, ignoring the sudden looks the death eaters gave him, went straight into the Great Hall where he knew every living soul still in the castle would be. 

"Mcgonagall!" Harry's voice roared, making every glass in the room tingled slightly as he opened the doors with quite a bit of magic help, for he surely wouldn't have been able to move the heavy door by himself otherwise.

Everyone stopped chatting. Due to the Yule festivities, the Great Hall had changed the long house tables for a pretty big dance floor covered in thin white snow that was just cold enough to make a nice shiver run through Harry's spine as he approached the two tables at the end of the hall. Almost absent mindedly Harry decided that he should really compliment Mrs Fraythler, the new herbology teacher, for the beautiful forest like decorations she had made. The tall trees and small lake at the back made the great hall even more astonishing than usual. Instead of distracting himself with the little magical snowflakes falling from the ceiling, Harry tried to hold on the anger that had make him leave the Yule ball the Dark Lord was holding at Riddle Manor to come to Hogwarts. His green eyes searched through the professors' table, until they reached the tall figure of the headmistress of Hogwarts.

"Lord Potter" she answered him as he stopped a few meters away from the small podium where the tables where located, voice calm and steady as always "Is there any way we can assist you?"

Harry took a deep breath, trying to somehow both keep his anger up because he was sure he had the right to be mad, and calming himself, for he wanted to talk to the witch with the respect she deserved. 'She isnt the one you are angry at, Harry' he looked at the rest of the teachers' faces, and then at the ten or twelve kids sitting in the second table, the smaller one reserved for kids who preferred to spend Yule at Hogwarts.

"Just..." He began, lowering his tone as he took in the scared faces of the younger kids. His anger trembled inside him, guilt taking its place for a second. He was not here to scare little children. He was not here to scare anyone. "Just don't tell him I'm here." 

A couple of teachers turned their heads, gasping. Mcgonagall hold his gaze and replied without hesitation "Are you asking me to lie to our Lord, Harry Potter?"  
"No, I'd never" he felt a small smirk growing on his face "But you know, this is an important night. It wouldn't be strange to have the flu network closed tonight." 

Harry hoped he could spend at least a couple of hours on his own, even if going to Hogwarts was not exactly the best way to get some alone time. Voldemort would probably be there in an hour. But he would check first Draco's house, at least, and if he was lucky, his fiancé would think of Hogwarts as an extremely obvious place for Harry to hide.  
Not that he was hiding. At all.

He looked at mcgonagall again, and tried to make her understand. 'I just want to able to be mad without having 26 people telling me how I should let it go, or try to solve it by having a talk' he practically begged her with his eyes 'I just want to get really angry and scream and curse without caring about my friends following me'

Mcgonagall, lady of the people and the light of Harry's life at that moment, tilted her head to the side. "And if it's not the Dark Lord the one who calls?"  
"If either Draco or Hermione get in contact with you just tell them to piss off. It's not like they have any real jurisdiction here, do they? You only need to actually answer the Dark Lords questions. And if you block the way he has to ask them, no one here would be at any risk."

The headmistress' voice hardened "I will not have a squad of death eaters nocking at my door on Yule just because no one knows where to find you, Mr Potter!" 

Another round of gasps raised from the two tables. Harry himself felt a bit annoyed at how commanding her voice had been. It had been a very long time since someone who was not a close friend of his had dared to speak to him in such a fashion. Harry no longer took commands from anyone. Not the Dursleys, not his friends, and certainly not a disgusting, undeserving little teacher who hold herself oh so high a-

Harry blinked, stoping his thoughts. That hadnt been him, but Marvolo. He took a second to calm himself. It had also been a very long time since the horrocrux in him had expressed itself in such a direct form. His anger must have awoken Marvolo from his long sleep, and he had come roaring like a sleepy, bitter, angry lion to defend Harry's honor. It was almost cute. 

"If Ron comes," he stared at her, smoothing Marvolo's half angry half already back to sleep self in the darker parts of his mind "You can tell him that I'm in the castle. He will find me."

His voice came out cold with disapproval. However, the headmistress hold her ground, and gave a little nod. She would do as he said, but she would not apologize for her manners, apparently.  
Marvolo was just and angry eco mumbling for revenge by the time Harry broke eye contact with the witch. He gave her a simple grin, turned around and started to walk towards the end of the hall.

"Well, I believe that's all." He cheered, turning around to face the wary eyes of both professors and students. "But, as much as I like you, Minerva..." His grin turned sharp "You would do well not forgetting who exactly you are talking to."

With a flick of his hand the heavy doors of the great hall closed after Harry, who stretched himself like a cat while children screams started to come from the hall behind him. He almost laughed. Fred and George would probably pat him in the back when they heard about this. It was not an every day thing someone was able to break through the guards protecting Hogwarts decorations. Although they probably wouldn't have chosen to do something like turning the snow flakes falling from the sky into warm, heavy blood.  
He vaguely remembered why he had been so angry before arriving at Hogwarts. 

It was always nice to spend some quality time at home.

-0-

Harry's anger didn't stay away from him for too long. He hadn't been walking around the castle for more than a couple of minutes when he remembered the fight he had had with Voldemort, in front of everyone attending the Yule ball. It had been a nasty one. He had been holding his anger for quite sometime, and after a light pre-fight before the ball, he had exploded in front of not only his best friend Ron, who was quite happy being in denial about just how close he was with the Dark Lord, but in front of fucking Severus Snape. Harry felt like kicking the wall next to him but Lord Voldemort's words (cold, hard and unmerciful) crossed his mind and he changed his mind. He was not 'just a child', and he was not going to 'throw a tantrum' as his always charming old potions professor had suggested in a mocking tone in front of everyone that mattered in the Wizarding World of Britain. 

He felt his heart skipping a beat when Marvolo gave a halfhearted groan from the back of his mind, clearly displeased with the memory. That had definitely not been the Dark Lord's reaction. Voldemort had not even looked annoyed with Snape's comment. It had been the most embarrassing moment in his entire life, hands down.

They had been just discussing the issue that always made them fight, obviously. Harry wanted kids.

Maybe not today, not next year, but he definitely wanted to have his own little person. Or people, even. Ever since little Teddy Lupin was brought to this world and Remus had made him the godfather, Harry couldn't stop thinking about it. He couldn't care less if the only way he could have those kids was adoption, he almost preferred it. It felt like he would be getting a family at the same time he was saving someone from the hell he lived with the Durleys. He didn't even care whether they get a girl or a boy, black hair to mach their own or any other color of the damn rainbow. He just wanted to, someday, get to see his future husband and himself, holding a baby the same way his parents had held him in that old photograph that half giant gave him on his first Hogwarts year.

Somehow, Lord Voldemort was not only not on board with the idea, but completely against it. Harry could star counting how many times he had tried to have an actual conversation with the Dark Lord about the issue for him to just make some not so nice comments and abandon the room. Just like that. They had fighted (loud, hex filled fights) about a good number of things during the 6 years the dark lord had been reborned, but whenever Harry tried to either convince him to listen to the reasons he wanted to someday form a family or let Voldemort explain why he didn't want one, he would just gave him a cold stare and leave the room.

It had happened that night, too. Harry had been trying to decided what he should gift his godson with for this Yule, and had asked Voldemort for advice. When he, barely looking at the presents at all, told him to just choose something before Yule had actually passed, Harry dared to tease him asking him if he would be that stoic and comfortable if Teddy was actually their kid and someone just gave him 'the first thing that crossed their minds' as a Yule present. At that moment, for once, Voldemort didn't leave the room. He just stared at Harry, his blood red ayes pinning him to the spot he stood in. "If I was that unfortunate outcome of accidental magic's father I would make sure to keep it away from you. So, go ahead, choose anything you want. Anyone stupid enough choosing someone like you to be responsible for anything really deserves whatever happens to them and their family. It's not like you have any idea of how to treat a child. You have no parents. What will you do with it? Throw it into a cupboard?" And with that, he had left the room.

Harry had stayed frozen in place for a good five minutes before he finally did choose the first thing he landed his eyes on and followed his fiancé into the ball to welcome the guests.

The insults haven't even upset him that much. He had often said worst things to Voldemort during heated fights, and Harry knew that just like Voldemort knew what to say to make it hurt, so did he. He knew that, at the end of the day, neither of them mean any of the rather nasty things they were able to come up with. He himself usually regretted most of the things that could fell from his mouth when angry. But it was the first time Voldemort had insulted Teddy. Harry knew it had always been him the one to try to make them spend time with the toddler but he had never imagine his soon to be husband didn't like the kid. It had been the extrangely tender way the dark lord carried himself around the little metamophemagus what had make Harry want a kid in the first place. The way he had talked about the child had stung more that the insults towards himself. 

The ball started without them saying another word to each other. Voldemort was apparently having too much net working to do, while Harry felt that if he had to face the dark lord he wouldn't be able to stop himself from asking him if he really meant what he had said, and just thinking about it made his blood heat up with anger. So he had made sure to stay far away from the head of Britain. But obviously, the Potter luck did wear off. He had been talking with Ron and Neville about quidditch, as usual, when he had felt a cold hand brushing his shoulder.

"Harry, dear." -and if the unusual name-calling had sounded fake in tha ball room full of people, now, walking through Hogwarts empty halls they sounded plain mocking- "There is someone who wants to meet you" Voldemort had said avoiding looking into Harry's eyes.

Harry let his own, present hand ghost over the stone walls, almost touching them as he walked by, The momentary satisfaction of being able to break through Mcgonagall's guards long forgotten. Of course, it had been some other random oversea's politician the one who had wanted to talk to the famous boy who lived. Harry rememebered wondering if Voldemort would have talked to him or look at his direction at all if it hadn't been for that man whose name Harry couldn't even remember now. Maybe it would all ended up better than this if the man had just ignored him.

Harry wasn't even sure what had the man had exactly said, but he remembered Voldemort's hand griping his shoulder in a mute threat. Do not make a fool of yourself. It'll make me look bad if my fiancé acted like hotblooded Gryffindor. And of course, Harry had had to cut the over polite speech the well dressed, brunette man was trying to feed him with some unpolite remark of how he probably shouldn't be taking to him anyway, undeserving and irresponsible little half blood scum Harry was.

Figures, the blood thing had not pleased Lord Voldemort. 

-0-

He had just entered one of the old, dusty rooms in the dungeons when he heard it.

"Oh my, is there something wrong, boy?"

Harry froze. The room was supposed to be empty. Every student or teacher remaining in the castle should be in the fest, and no one will leave the great hall until he had left the school, he was sure of that.  
He turned around searching for the source of the voice with suspicious eyes. He was frustated enough to curse any teacher stupid enough to think that trying to surprise him was a good idea. He didn't really contemplate the idea of it being a student's voice, old and cracked as it had sounded.

And there, almost hided in the shadows of the wall right next to the door, Harry Potter found a single portrait.

"Who are you?" Harry hoped his voice sounded more angry and less tired than he felt. Frowning, he took in the appearance of the old man inside the portrait. Long, white hair framed his sharp face, and an even longer white beard took over the bottom half of the painting. He was wearing odd bright blue and green robes and his clear eyes looked at him with curiosity through half-moon glasses. Harry had his name in the tip of his tongue.

"Harry, my boy, it's me. The headmaster."

Harry's forwn grew deeper. "Minerva McGonagall is the headmistress of this school" 

"I know, it's me, Dumbledore."

Harry stared at him for a minute, processing the information. Dumbledore, as in... Albus Dumbledore? Harry's eyebrows raised in confusion and he took a couple of steps back, glaring at the wizard. He remembered him now. Albus Dumbledore had been headmaster of Hogwarts during Harry's first months in the school, before Marvolo had help him and Quirrel to find a way to bring Voldemort back from the soul-sucking limbo he was living in. He had never really seen why Voldemort hated the wizard so much, so little impact the old headmaster had left in him. With Harry and Marvolo's help, the dark lord had found a way of reuniting his death eaters and make sure Dumbledore was out of the way before the first year was over. 

But even if he had never really talked to him, he knew his fiancé was a lot of things, but stupid and a coward were not between his flaws. Normally. Regarding enemies anyway. So if Voldemort had been wary enough to take the wizard out of the way as soon as possible, Harry should not just sit around and chat with its portrait.

"Why is there a portrait of you in the school? I know all of them were order to be burnt as soon as Voldemort got his body back"  
The man in the portrait send him a calm smile that did not calm Harry at all "Seems like some people were obviously not on board with that decision, don't you think so, Harry?"

Harry's hand turned into fists. "Stop saying my name like that. I'm Lord Potter to you." 

"Oh, sorry Lord Potter, for a moment there I mistook you for a kid that was unhappy" 

"I am no kid" 

"Doesn't mean you weren't sad when you entered the room, now does it?"

Harry looked at the portrait without any piece of trust in him. He was alone, in Hogwarts, with a painting of the most hated enemy of the Dark Lord of Britain trying to comfort him after a pre-marital fight. Speaking of weird things.

"Tell me, Harry. What has you so sad that you didn't notice your old teacher was here, too?"

Unexpectedly, Harry told him.

"Oh, well, that is... Yes, it is troublesome indeed"

Harry looked up from his hands, which had been his focal point while telling Dumbledore the full story. 

Somewhere along the way of sharing private conversations between the two most influential people in Britain with a portrait of the once greatest threat to the country he had decided to sit down in front of if. The hard stone floor was just a bit colder than him.

"Troublesome? Not really. Now we are simply both disappointed with each other."

"Oh, I don't mind that, Harry m'boy. I think it is troublesome that your fiancé doesn't want to have anything with you that will bind you both forever"

Harry snorted at that.  
"I'm his horrocrux. It doesn't get much more 'forever bonded' than that."

"Yeah, but he didn't choose that one, did he?"

"We are gonna get married"

"You just told me he proposed in your sixteen birthday, after a fight. That's more than a year ago. Why aren't you married yet?"

Harry did stop talking then. It was true, and it was something he had thought about more than once.

"Are you trying to make me switch sides because of a fight? Is this really the resistance strategy? Because then you really do need all the help you can get. Your plans suck, guys. I'm not leaving him."

"I'm not trying anything Harry, I'm simply glad someone found me in this dusty room. I was getting really lonely here you know"

Harry stared at him, almost not believing what was happening. "It doesn't really matter" he sighed. Even with no windows in the room, he could tell it was almost morning. He felt glad McGonagall had kept her promise, since he wouldn't have been allowed to rumble around the castle till that late if she hadn't had closed the flu network. Hermione and Ron would have dragged him back to Riddle Manor if they knew where he was. "The night is over, and I need to go back before anyone comes here and really scares the kids with something more that blood rain"

"Oh, good bye then, Harry. It was really nice of you to drop by. Feel free to do it any other time!"

Harry left the room without saying goodbye. His anger long forgotten, he was now just really tired.

-0-

Harry did infact come back. He found himself talking to the portrait more and more each month. It was nice to have someone who could only listen to you, but not have really an impact in your life at all. Harry tought it was like keeping a diary, only his particular diary had a long furry beard and could actually talk to him.

His friends notice it, too. Hermione was the first one to try and make him confess where did he go whenever he disappear for long afternoons. The witch was now one of the high ministry employees, being, at her 17 years of age, one of the youngest undersecretary of the minister, and she had pretty strong convictions about punctuality. Apparently, his disappearances had caused her some trouble, and she was not having any of it.

Draco did also notice it, and though he was less vocal than Hermione, he also tried to make Harry talk about it.

It was in moments like that when Harry remembered exactly why Ron was his best friend. He did not try to make Harry talk. After some days of soft questions that were left without answer, he just sat down beside him and told him that if Harry ever felt like he could share his secret, he would keep it. For as long as needed. Harry would never regret sitting with him in the Hogwarts train that first year. No matter what Marvolo had said then, he had been able to keep his friendship with the read headed Gryffindor even tough he was in Slytherin. And he was so glad he did.

The only one who never asked him anything was lord Voldemort. Harry knew they had grew a bit distant since that Yule fight. Not because of the fight it self, but because Voldemort knew Harry was doing something and not telling him about it. Harry often wondered why he didn't try to force him to talk. He wasn't sure he liked the answers his brain came up with, all of them with an odd Dumbledore ring to them.

Harry was not stupid. He knew Dumbledore would gladly see Voldemort and his' hard work destroyed, but it wasn't like the dead man could really do anything. He was just a portrait. So Harry would wake up, fill breakfast with some half-hearted chat with his fiancé, spend the morning either attending meetings or training the soon to be death eaters, and then have lunch with his friends, before disappearing till dinner time and then go to bed with Voldemort. It was strange, that they could still have sex like always, just not really taking to each other that much. Something was off. At the end of the day, Voldemort knew Harry was keeping something from him, not even trying to be discrete about it, and Voldemort didn't care enough to even ask him about it. 

"I just don't know what it's going on with him!" Harry was in front of Dumbledore's portrait, yet again. "What do I have to do to make him care? I'm being as obvious as possible, I'm actining like a damn Gryffindor all the time!"

Albus kept looking at him with his blue eyes, fingers petting his beard.

"I didn't know you wanted him to found out, Harry."

"It is not about finding out, I just want him to... To... I don't know! To care enough to ask me, maybe! Make a comment, anything!" Harry growled, his finger running through his hair "Why is everything so...ugh"

He sat down, to tired to keep his rage full force. Dumbledore was not who he should talk to, he knew that much. He should tell Ron. Or Hermione. Probably not Draco, and definitely not Luna, but he had to stop talking to Dumbledore. Maybe that would make everything less tiring. 

"Do you know how sometimes you start thinking about what would have happened if you haven't done one single thing in your life?" He asked absently. He knew he shouldn't have this conversation with Dumbledore of all people, but he was too exhausted to care "We can't even fuck properly anymore" he saw Dumbledore make a small cringe at his words. "It's not like he refuses or anything, but... It's basically that, actually. He just never asks. It's like he was af-" no, not afraid, the Dark Lord wasn't afraid of anything "-unsure if I want it. And I don't know how to... It feels like he is trying to compensate me for something and I don't what he is trying to compensate for. He knows I'm not mad at him. It's like he... I don't know. I don't know and it frightens me. And I know it is your fault cause I had never doubt him until I met you"

Harry's words where accusatory, sharp and filled If poison. He wanted to blame someone for everything that was happening and he didn't want to blame Voldemort. He was not the one talking to mortal enemies of the system in the relationship after all. Harry had planned to tell him, in the beginning. He thought it would be a nice 'sorry I lost my shit in front of random guy number 8, here, get this weird portrait of the man you hated, let's burn it and then celebrate with some makeup sex' kind of present, but then he came home, and Lord Voldemort hadnt asked him where he had been. He acted like Harry arriving home for breakfast was an everyday occurrence, and never brought up the subject. So neither had Harry. For quite sometime Harry had waited for the Dark Lord's questions, sure that they would eventually come, but they never did. 

"I just... Maybe I shouldn't have every started this. I could have help him without having to be, you know, Harry Potter soon to be Riddle. Maybe everything could have..." He stopped his thoughts. He didn't mean that. He looked again at the portrait with hateful eyes. He loved Voldemort. He had never regretted a single thing he had ever done. It was this portrait's fault.

"Maybe, I could arrange that."

Harry's eyes went wild. So the portrait was trying to trick him after all. "I won't make a deal with you"

"Oh my boy, I thought I was the one dealing with the devil"

Harry wanted to stop listening. He knew nothing good would come from the portrait of the Light Lord. But somehow, he felt he could not really stop listening either.

"I like you, Harry. It's been so long since anyone made me company like you are doing right now. And I think you deserve getting a bit of happiness right now. If you feel like it, I will give you a day. Whole 24 hours of you being a normal teenage boy, attending your last year at Hogwarts. If everything goes well, you can keep that day as a moment of liberty, or even a reminder of how good your life here actually is."

Harry wasn't sure why he felt like he wanted to accept. He really shouldn't.

"I don't deal with the dead, Dumbledore"

He left the room with the old headmaster's voice still ringing in his ears.

-0-

"What would you want in exchange?" 

"Oh, Harry. You wound me. Why does every Slytherin think people would want something in exchange?"

Silence filled the room. The man in the portrait sighed, opening his hands in a concealer gesture.

"Ok, Harry. I'll need something to make the spell, that's the only thing I'll ask you for. I have no magic myself, you see."

Harry was sure he shouldn't be there. It was pitch black outside when he had left Voldemort's bed to come here, because he hadn't been able to stop thinking about the portrait's offer for months now. Just a day. Only once.

"I'll need a day of your life."

Harry knew he shouldn't want to do it.

-0-

"Back again, Harry?"

"I want three days"

Dumbledore looked at him with wary eyes. "Three days is a long time, Harry"

"Also, I want to make sure you won't be alive in this other dimension or dream. And I also want proof that I will be able to break the spell at any time. There will be no deal otherwise."

Dumbledore looked pensative, and Harry palmed himself in the back. He had demands. He would not just jump into the deal like a little Gryffindor. It made him feel like he was less desperate than what he actually was.

He wanted the deal. He wanted to make sure he would preferred his life as it was then, even with the strange tension between Voldemort and him. He wanted to show himself how happy he was. And he wanted three days to make sure he could deal with any unexpected events. He was sure dumbledore wouldn't have offer him a deal just because the goodness of his heart.

"I can assure you that I'd be as death as I am now. And of course you could break the spell at any time, Harry. Kissing your fiancé would be enough." Dumbledore say, a kind, small smile in his lips. "But my end of the deal stays the same. Now more than ever, I'd dare to say. I'll need the magic."

Harry nodded, and made his last petition. He wanted the day to be one of his days with the dursleys. He was sure he wouldn't miss any of those.  
Dumbledore looked happy enough with it, and asked Harry to come to him again with a list of potion ingredients by the next new moon.

Harry did it, and even while he was preparing the potion under the guidance of the headmaster, he couldn't help but feel like he had been tricked.

-0-

When Harry opened his eyes, he was still in the same room, looking at Dumbledore's portrait. The man was smiling at him. It wasn't a weird smile, but it wasn't really a pleasant one either. He looked almost sad.


	2. Like Alice in Wonderland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. Don´t yell at me, this is huge. I had to divided it again because look at me in the eye and tell me you would read something that is more than twenty six pages long. Do it. I just hope the length of this pleases you all and maybe helps you forgive my sins? 
> 
> I´m sorry, really sorry. But I gotta go fight the last part. Which looks like its going to be longer than this one. What a joy.
> 
> Any way, do you guys know why AO3 keeps deleting my italics? I spent the last hour placing those and look at this. Ugh. The last part was mostly italics.
> 
> Warnings: Harry faints. A lot. Also, re-check the tags.

Half of Harry wished that something felt odder than it did. 

He let his eyes search the room, looking for something that will tell him that he had in fact being tricked, but the dungeon felt and looked exactly the same as it did moments before Harry had levitated the caldron full of some violet potion he had barely managed to properly make, and let it drip over himself.

The stone walls of Hogwarts still looked old and home to him. The floors, suddenly clean from any mess he had done didn't hold a single element that could make anyone think Harry had been making the most complicated potion he had ever seen, under the instructions of a portrait.

He wasn't sure if that should make him feel calm or uneasy.

"So this is it?" He asked, arching a single eyebrow towards the portrait.

"Well Harry, don't sound so disspointed. You haven't even been out of this room yet"

As if those had been the magic words, Harry's attention turned to the door. He suddenly was way more excited than unimpressed. 

"You are dead. And if at any moment I want to return home before the three days are over, I just need to kiss Voldemort, right?"

When Dumbledore didn't answer him immediately, Harry's glare turned to the portrait with such force he could have melted it if he had actually let some magic scape from him.

"Our contract hasn't change, my boy."

Harry's excitement returned full force, his face forming a wild smile. He couldn't believe he had actually played with his luck in such a fashion, but look at him. He had now three full days to do whatever he wanted. No social meetings, no high expectations, just Harry having fun. He couldn't wait to run around Hogwarts with his friends. Maybe he could play some quidditch with Ron after classes or... wait. He was going to go back to class.

Harry's mind completely forgot about Dumbledore's portrait as he realized that he has going to be allowed to complete his last year at Hogwarts. Voldemort has asked him that summer not to return for his seventh year, saying that he would be much more needed training the new Death Eaters. Harry knew that during the years Voldemort had taught him more than any Hogwarts professor ever could, but something in him felt warm and bubbly at the thought of walking through those magic hallways as a student once again.

He was out of the door before he even realized it.

-0-

Harry found Hogwarts unexpectedly quiet. Not that he was bothered by it, not really, but it got him a bit out of guard for a few seconds. The he realized he was probably skipping class and he couldn't contain the wild grin that spread through his face. Him, Harry Potter, the Dark Lord's right hand and the finest duelist of his own army was skipping class. Feeling like a small kid, he run through the corridors trying to make sure he could not be found. Being sneacky was unexpectedly fun.

Not that his efforts were really necessary, since there was no one in sight.  
Harry decided to go to his old room. Well, not that old anymore, was it? He almost couldn't believe he had carried out the deal until the very end. The half of him that was screaming inside his head to get away from there seemed oddly quiet now that nothing terrible had really happened. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing, either.

The dungeons where exactly like he remembered them. The password to actually get inside the common room, not so much. Harry stood there, staring at the door, deeply offended. He had really though the door would just appear for him and now he felt incredibly stupid. What was he supposed to do? Wait until someone finished their classes so he could ask them to kindly open the door for him? He started to walk in front of the door impatiently, not used to having to wait. He was not supposed to be kept waiting. He glared at the wall where he knew the door was, even if he couldn't see it, and his frown intensified. He was starting to feel a bit dizzy, a minor headache making an appearance, and it wasn't helping with his mood at all. The door should open for him anyway, since he was the Heir of Slytherin´s-  
Oh, wait. He wasn't, not anymore, or at least not in this 'dream', was he?  
So he would have to wait.

Harry wrote down 'I'm actually treated with respect' in his mental list of why should he be more than happy with living as the fiancé of the Dark Lord of Britain.

They were first years. The first students to arrive at the door where first years. A couple of eleven year olds where about to save his sorry excuse of a dark magic practician from staying outside his own common room for another twenty minutes. Dear Merlin. He seriously hoped Draco was either death or severely injured in this dream, or he would never let him forget this moment.

The two kids were laughing, probably sharing some fun anecdote from their last class, and Harry approached them with the most charming smile he had. 

"Hey boys, I was trying to get into the common room and-" Harry stopped talking. Both kids were looking at him with widen eyes. The blond one, the one on the right, even opened his mouth slightly. They both looked like they were having a vision.

Then their faces started to twist, and when fear filled their eyes they looked less like they where having a vision and more like they were looking directly and someone's ghost. When the kid on the left opened his mouth and started to scream, hell ran loose.

Both kids turned around and if Harry hadn't been trained in combat since he was almost twelve he wouldn't have been able to react as fast as he did. Without really thinking, he sprinted out after them. 

"He is here! He is here! Harry Potter is in Hogwarts!" The blond boy shouted at the top of his lungs. Harry tried to run faster, and he strangely noticed his legs a bit shaky. He reached foward, and grabbed the other boy, all brown eyes and neat caramel hair. The blond one kept running, but Harry pinned the boy he had caught to the floor. It was a mechanic reaction.  
He didn't even know why he had a terrified eleven year old held against the floor, but his instincts had saved his life countless times. So instead of apologizing and telling the kid to never just run from someone trained, he grabbed the boys robes and made sure he would not move. 

Sadly, he could not make him stop screaming.

It looked like he hadn't been able to stop doing it since Harry had as much as touched his clothes, and the kids terrified eyes were burning holes in his head. Harry held both his wrists with his own hand and then just put his hand over the kid's mouth.

"Okay buddy," he started, making sure to make eye contact with the boy "I'm not going to hurt you, but-"

The boy struggled harder, and Harry sat on him. This was not exactly normal.

It would not be the first, nor the second or third time someone had ran away from him screaming, but definitely it was the first time a kid did it. Harry had a dry, strange humor, like making blood rain In the middle of a feast, that's for sure, but everyone knew he never hurt innocent children out of the blue. They shouldn't be afraid of him. He tried to smooth his tone of voice, and with a reassuring smile, tried again.

"Hey, hey look at me. You are gonna be alright, you hear me? You just... Scared me" the pressure of his grip decreased, and the boy's eyes grew until they were so big they threatened to exploit.

"You are going to stop screaming, are you not?" The boy nodded slowly, apparently not knowing what to do. "Good boy" Harry removed his hand, and the boy's lips quickly started to move.

"You are Harry Potter. This is Hogwarts. Harry Potter is in Hogwarts" his voice trembled, and then his eyes turned hard "You will not make it out alive Potter. The headmaster will get you, and then the Dark Lord will end you!" 

Harry blinked at him. Head... Master? Not headmistress? 

"What do mean headmaster? Where is Minerva McGonagall?"

"What does she have to do with this? Hoping your head of house will help you?" The boy answered.

Harry's headache made itself more present. Something was indeed not okay. There was no way Minerva McGonagall was the head of Slytherin house. Not even in whatever strange dream he was having. He was going to open his mouth to protest, when he heard someone coming. He turned around fast enough to hear a voice he distantly recognize as Daphne Greengrass.

"Pansy, wait, what on e-"

The stupefy hit him square in the chest and Harry knew no more.

-0-

"Call him now Severus, I don't know why we keep waiting. Everyone in this room will be punished if he finds out about this!"

Harry's head hurt. He felt tired. The darkness that moments ago was covering his mind started to disappear, and he blinked slowly. The headmistress office. He was in the headmistress office, and he was not alone.

He didn't open his eyes, but did try to move around almost imperceptibly. He was tied to a chair. Not even a comfortable chair. It had been so, so long since he had felt this humiliated. Draco's girlfriend had left him out of combat with a simple stupefy. There were so many things wrong in that sentence he wanted to scream.

He took a deep breath, and tried to find his wand. It was on his usual place, on the inside of his boot. He could feel it, pressing slightly against his skin. A reminder of just how out of reach it was, when his hands were tied up. 

"Calm down Carrow, or do you wish to tell the Dark Lord that Harry Potter managed to pass through the guards He himself put around the castle? Would you also like to communicate him how he apparently wondered around the dungeons for an undefined period of time, without you or your sister, who, -and please, correct me if I'm wrong- were supposed to be patrolling the school halls, noticed it? You are going to be punished for this anyway, so I'll recommend you to watch you tone when talking to me. I'm the one who holds the potions that will allow you to keep breathing after our Lord is done with you."

Harry sighed. He would be able to recognize that dry tone anywhere. Just perfect. Snape. He was tied up, in McGonagall's office, with Snape. And probably the Carrows. What a beautiful morning. 

"And Potter, everyone knows you are awake. Even if your breath hadn't increased in a more than noticeable amount, you just blinked. Are you even trying?" Snape's words cut through him like a knife, and he opened his eyes with a malicious glint. 

"I'm Lord Potter to you, Snape. Do try too keep up, and show more respect to your superiors. Untie me right now."

The potion's professor looked at him whith a slightly opened mouth. Harry took in the rest of the place, and discovered that they were not, indeed, alone. His chair was in the center of the circular room, and apparently Snape had wanted to keep this conversation private, since only him, Amycus Carrow and surprisingly Filius Flitwick were in the office. The charms professor was standing awkwardly in a corner, and the moment Carrow started to circle Harry's sit his nervousness was fully displaced for Harry. The small man started to subconsciously rub between his sweaty fingers a galleon, not looking in Harry's direction. He obviously did not want to be there. Harry´s attention returned to Snape, only to see the man's pale face turn red and furious.

"What... Did you just say, Potter?" 

"I said, show more respect-" Harry didn't even see it coming. One moment, Snape was pinning him down with a hateful glare, and the next he was right in front of Harry, one hand wide opened crossing the air until it collided with his cheek. The force of the slap made him turn his face, and he could almost feel every digit of Snape's hand burning his skin. He probably had the man's hand printed in red on his cheek. Judging by the soft gasp of professor Flitwick, it was not a pretty sight.

"Try to disrespect me one more time, boy, just one more time. You are just an arrogant little child-"

Harry was seeing red. No one had hit him since he was eleven years old. And he had made sure he gave them a reason not to do it. He might not be the Dark Lord´s fiancé in this dream of his, but he was still his horcrux. He couldn´t belive snape had dared…

"I said untie me now." His voice was low, and dark, a bit more and he would be speaking in parseltongue. He made sure his eyes showed just how displeased he was. "I want to talk to McGonagall. And mark my words, Severus." He pinned him down to the spot, his headache pulsing at the back of his mind and his teeth pressing tight against each other. "You will regret to have ever been born"

"Crucio!"

The spell came from behind him, and Harry's nerves caught fire. He tried not to scream, and he managed not to do it. He heard himself gasp for air, and felt his body combulsing under the curse. It was not the strongest one he had ever face, not in the slightest, but he felt extrangely tired and weak. In between waves of pain he started to realize he had never asked Dumbledore if the potion would weaken him in anyway aside of murder or turning him into a squib. He had made sure his little adventure would not cost him his life, nor his magic, but he had never thought the portrait would just make him feel sick.

When the pain finally ended, Almycus Carrow looked way to satisfied for Harry's liking. 

"Well, look at this, the Chosen One is tough one, isn't him?" His nasty smile made Harry shiver, but not in fear. He had never particularly like the Carrow twins, but they had always been more than civil around him. Something was just too wrong with this. "Should we find out just how tough you really are?" 

The next crucio definitely made him scream. Louder than he expected, but definitely not as loud as any other seventeen year old would do it. He felt almost proud of himself when Carrow stopped the curse with a hateful glare. 

“I can do this all night, Potter." He walked to him, and took Harry by his hair, making him close his eyes in pain. His whole body felt tense like a bow, and the pull made his skull burn "Are you going to be a good boy and tell us how you got in here? Severus here finds it really strange, you know?"

Harry spit at him. Something was definitely wrong here, but he would deal with it when he scaped this place.

"I will repeat my words one more time, only for you pretty Death Eater ears, Almycus. Where. Is. The headmistress-?"

"Headmistress?"

The high pitched voice of Flitwick took both Snape and Carrow by surprise. Harry looked at him and tried to arch an eyebrow at his direction, although he wasn't sure his hurt face looked quite as he would like it to do. The professor had stopped playing with his golden coin, but the look in his eyes made it very clear he still didn't want to be there. Harry wondered if it was some kind of extracurricular training. Maybe all the teachers had to pass a test where some Death Eaters would torture some students to see if they knew how not to interfere with the Dark Lord's authority? This dream was not at all what he expected it to be.

"Yes, professor, I..."

"But you are aware, mister Potter, that the headmaster of this school is Severus Snape, are you not?" 

Harry stared at him. Snape was definitely not a headmaster. His expression must have shown some of his thoughts, because Carrow had stopped graving his hair and was now just looking at him. As was everyone the room, really. There was no way in this world that Voldemort had made Snape of all people a headmaster.  
He hated kids, for Merlin's beard! It was just not-

"Reducto!"

The door exploted with a loud sound, and Harry barely had time to close his eyes tightly, moving his body so the pieces of wood would hit his shoulders instead of his head before the office filled with an almost white smoke, and he heard steps of other people entering the room running. 

"Stupefy! Petrificus totalus! Relaxio! Harry, stand up!"

He had never as glad to hear Neville Longbottom's voice as he was right now. Harry opened is eyes for a second, and the livid face of Severus Snape filled his smoked-clouded vision.

"Carrow, stop!"

"Avada Kedavra!" 

Green light filled the room, and Harry felt a hand on his shoulder. Carrow shoved him to the floor, and he fell, still tied up to the chair, crushing his right arm between the chair and the floor. He felt dizzy from the cruciatus, and the small headache he had felt for the last minutes was now not easy to ignore. He desperately tried to reach his magic, going for a burst of raw, wand less magic to free himself of the magic robes that bit his wrist, but a new wave of simple, pure pain made him open his mouth in a silent scream. 

He felt someone pulling at the magical robes, burning the skin of his wrists even more in the process. He gave a pull of his own, barely managing to contain a whimper at the feeling of the magically reforced ropes tighting even more, and some part of his pain filled mind realized he was bleeding, soaking the robes and helping them opening his flesh even more.

“Harry, I need you to stop moving, I can’t-“

“Diffindo!” the robes cut open, and Harry screamed. He had been trembling, and the cutting hex sliced part of his arms while freeing him from the chair. 

“McLaggen what the fuck do you think you are doing? Do you want him to bleed to death you f-“

“DOWN”

Another explosion cut the dialogue and Harry blinked, trying to get the dust away form his eyes. His glasses were just about to fall from his face. His two saviors rolled in the ground and had he been less dizzy and maybe not bleeding he would have scream at them as they where is death eaters in raining to put up a damn shield. 

Instead, a strong hand catched him from the shoulder and forced him stand up. 

He became face to face with a very dirty, very bloody Neville Longbottom. 

“Harry, I need you to keep moving, got it?”

Harry’s mouth was dry and he could taste blood coming down his chin, but he nodded and managed to stand up on his own. The other two boys pressed on his sides and Neville put a hand on the back of his neck, keeping Harry’s head down. Almycus Carrow screamed, and Harry was pushed out of the room. 

“Dean, barricade the door! We have to reach the DA!” Neville’s voice sounded harsh, demanding, and Harry held onto it like if it was his anchor to conscience. He didn’t know what was happening, but Neville, his friend, captain of the hit Death Eaters was there, and Harry forced himself to believe everything was going to be alright. 

He ran through the corridors, and he heared his other to rescuers foot steps right behind them. The cut in his inner arm had stopped bleeding that much, but the amount of blood in his robes made him almost laugh out loud. Either the cut was not as deep as it had looked, which meant his rescuers weren’t able to throw a powerful Diffindo, or he had just bleed out and now he was surviving on adrenaline only. 

Both options sounded awful.

They reached some stairs, and Harry tripped over his own feet, legs to shaky to carry him properly. He fell down the stairs, and he heard Neville curse. When he reached the end of the stairs, he wasn’t sure he could stand up. He began to bleed again, his left shoulder hurting like crazy. His whole body was trembling with the cruciatus after effects, and he knew, he knew he was not this weak. It had never taken him this long to recover from a torture curse, and his headache was only getting worse. His limbs felt heavy, and his magic was not folding around his body, protecting him, like it always did when he was in danger. But he stood up. He walked, one leg after the other, and then he run, Neville’s hand griping his neck again and hexes and dark curses banging at his ears.  
“Almost there, Harry, almost there” 

Harry wanted to ask where “there” was supposed to be, but something told him he wouldn’t be able to walk and talk at the same time. Then they turned left, and right, and someone shouted something like “Call him, call him now!”before Neville junked him from the neck of his robes and he found himself running towards a dead end hallway. 

Harry stopped, his eyes suddenly wide and incredulous. Neville and the other two had lead him to a fucking dead end of all things, what-

He didn’t finish his own thought. Neville sprinted past him, and ran across the wall three times, and the moment Harry began to understand what was going to happen, one of the other two boys grabbed him from the back by the shoulder and dragged him the latest few meters towards the door. With a gasp, feeling all the nerves of his body scream while his shoulder burned, Harry Potter was shoved into the Room of Requirement.

The doors closed behind him, and for a second, he finally was able to appreciate silence. No screams, no lights flashing, and thank God, no more running with his left arm hanging from his probably dislocated shoulder. He took a deep breath, pressing his back against the door, and shudder. Neville and the other boys sit down on the floor right by him, all of them taking deep breaths after their rescue mision. Harry took a look at himself. He was not enjoying this dream. And his robes were filthy. 

He had been knocked out by one of his best friends girlfriend, tortured by his own subordinates, dragged through Hogwarts, and now his clothes were freaking filthy. Dumbledore was going to pay for this. Harry just needed to catch his breath and- he felt another wave of pain, and he bit his lips. 

When few finally raised his head, he met a room full of kids. They were all looking at him, and Harry stared right back. For a minute, no one said anything, and then Neville stood up, his breath still uneven and his hands shaking.

“Well, we did it”

And happy screams filled the room.

Every kid in the room started to shout in excitement, some laughing, and lots of them run towards Harry and his saviors, caressing and praising them. On the background, Harry heard someone calling his name, but he got distracted when he heard Remus name being mentioned.

“Get the radio Colin, we have to tell Remus, they will contact Herm-“

“Hogwarts here for anyone listening, we’ve been strucked by a lightning, I repeat, we’ve been struck by a lightning!” 

Harry tried to identify the people talking about his friends, but suddenly his line of vision was filled by heads and heads of children, lots of them in different shades of purple. His eyes opened in horror when he figured out what those shades were. Some of those kids had been beaten up. And recently.

“Potter, is that you, is it really you?”

“This is when we start the revolution, isn’t it? We have to strike now, right before-“

“What are you doing here, where are Ron and Hermione?” 

“Harry, how did you-?”

And then a couple of arms locked on his neck and he was pushed into a tight embrace.

“Harry I was so worried, I tried to go too but Neville… what happened, why are you covered in blood? Why are you always covered in blood?”

And he saw a flash of red before a pair of lips pressed against his own. A second later he was being kissed.

For a moment he didn’t know what to do. His eyes closed automatically, and his whole boy trembled for just how much he wanted to wake up in Voldemorts bed right now. He didn’t want this aching pain in his body and mind to continue. Why did he asked for three days again? He went rigid the moment a definitely not male chest pressed hard against him. It had been a long time since he had kissed a girl, and that had not ended well. When the girls tongue tried to move pass his lips he made a small, high pitched sound and shove her away.

“What on-?” And he stopped himself, for in front of him stood Ginevra Weasley, sister of his best friend, and one of the younger and most active leaders of the rebels. He had just been kissed by a member of the Order of the Phoenix.

Harry stared at her in disbelief. This dream could not be happening. No other dimension could be this different. The brown eyes of the read haired girl stared back, and she said her name with such love Harry felt like running from the room.

Loosing Ginevra had been hard for Ron. He had been the only Weasley who had followed Harry when he had joined the Dark Lord. Well, Percy Weasley was also under Voldemort’s orders, in the Ministry, but everyone knew he was a spy. Hermione’s reports of him trying to use pro-mudblood propaganda to lure her to their side were pretty clear on that. But it had hurt Ron. While the majority of his siblings had decided to stay neutral, his little sister hadn´t.

He stood with Harry, in the end, but he sacrificed his whole family for him. For a chance to prove himself. At the age of 11, when the Dark Lord returned, Ronald Weasley decided his friendship with Harry was not something his family should opinion on. At the age of 15, and with Harry’s promise to keep his family alive, Ron joined the Dark Lord, and became Harry’s main strategist in the war against France. Now, at 17, Great Britain was peaceful again, and Ron was a well known Death Eater, just like most of his family were all well known rebels. 

And Ginevra Weasley was a known, powerful rebel. Harry’s hand was on his boot before anyone could react. There were some distressed screams, and the read haired girl cried his name, thinking he was loosing consciousness, but the moment Harry’s finger touched the wand, he froze. That was not his wand.

He took it out anyways, and pointed right at the girls face, trembling. This was not okay. This was worst than okay. This was not a dream, but a complete different reality, that much was clear now. He was trapped in this strange reality where rebels kissed him and his head was constantly on fire and he felt weak all the time and he didn’t have his wand. He was holding Draco’s wand.  
“Harry, man, what are you doing?”

Harry panicked, and he pointed the wand at Neville. The boy raised his arms above his head, trying to calm him down, but it didn’t work. Harry pressed harder against the door and his fingers tighten around the wand. Could he trust Neville? Could he trust anyone in there? He didn’t even know what was happening. This world could not be, should not be, that different. 

“Stay away from me!” his voice broke at the end, and he cursed himself or showing such weakness in front of potential enemies. The tension from the run, he pain in his shoulder, and that thing pulsing at the back of his mind became to much, and he felt fear crawling inside of him. Suddenly, he was terrified. 

“Hey Potter, are you nuts? Do you have any idea how hard it was to save your sorry ass back there?” McLaggen snapped at him, moving away from him when the wand Harry was holding pointed at his face.

“Harry? Harry calm down” Ginevra´s voice made him turn to face her, and the confusion in her eyes almost made him laugh. So nice to see he was not the only one completely overwhelmed by the situation. His bright green eyes shone dangerously when she called out his name again, and his knuckles turned white around the wand, still pointed between McLaggen´s eyes.

“Harry” Neville’s voice sounded deeper, calmer than Ginevra’s.

“I said, stay. Away. From me.” He pressed himself harder against the door, like a scared animal.

“Harry, it’s us. The DA. Dumbledore’s Army.”

Everything happened too fast. Harry processed the name, and all his fear turned into a dark, thick anger. Dumbledore’s Army.

Dumbledore. How could he have an army when he was dead? Was this the old headmaster’s plan? To send him to some kind of other world where he had an army that would kill Harry for him? Maybe he was planning on playing with his disappearance, make Voldemort distrust his inner circle. Maybe when the three days had passed he would collect his head and send it to Voldemort with a poem about love, like the Dark Lord did with every rebel they managed to torture information out of.

Maybe he wouldn’t do anything, and just let the Lord believe his fiancé had run away from him. 

Something twisted painfully in his chest at that thought. But he was not going down without a fight. Actually, he was not going to go down, period. Harry was going to find that portrait. With a fluid movement, he positioned himself for a duel. Ignoring the painful shocks in his arm, he bended his knees slightly and moved his left arm behind his body. He relaxed his shoulders and firmed his wand wrist. He thank the long hours of training, because the wand didn’t shake in his hand for even a second. 

Dumbledore’s Army? Well, he would have to see with his own eyes how much of an army they were. 

People stared at him. Apparently they were not expecting him to fight them. Neville took a step towards him. He attacked.

“Expulso!” Harry’s wand cut the air and Neville’s body flew, crushing to the other end of the room.

“Potter what the hell!”

“Incarcerous!” 

Harry rolled in the floor, avoiding the ropes that had been thrown at him, and sent his next spell to the general zone where it had came from.

“Confundus! Everto Viscera!”

“THAT IS A DARK CURSE, EVERYBODY OUT OF THE WAY”

Harry got back on his knees and saw that they had managed to avoid his entrail-expeling curse, before putting up a shield on himself. A couple of ‘expelliermus’ spells hit it and he turned around, ready to leave the room. 

“Carpe retractum!” the Ginevra directed her spell to his leg, and the long chains hugged his ankle like a butterfly kiss before they pressed themselves into his flesh and junked him from his feet, making him hit the floor and dragging him towards her.

“Harry stop this madness right now, we don’t want to hurt-“

“You are the only ones that are going to get hurt! Deletrius!” the chains banished like thin air “Confringo”

She shield herself before the spell hit her, but he was already back on his feet before she could recast her immobilizer spell. His shoulder was on fire. He cursed, turned his attention back to the door. He needed to leave, and find that portrait. 

“Oh, no, Potter, you are not leaving this place” A blond girl tried to aim her wand at the door, the locking spell at the tip of her tongue, and Harry knew he was going to need something more drastic to make them leave him alone for the five seconds he needed to reach the door.

Harry pointed his wand to the ceiling “Deprimo!”

“WAIT, NO!”

The whole cealing shaked, and then it started to fall apart. 

The blond girl that had tried to shield the door was smashed by a giant piece of ceiling with a loud chof. Then everyone started screaming.

Harry casted a shield over his head, but he knew it would not last. Somehow, he was exhausted, like if he had used too much magic. The curses he had used where not exceptionally advanced, not even extremely dark, but he could taste blood in his mouth from the torture, his left arm hanged almost useless at his side, and when a huge rock hit his shield the impact sent him to his knees. He could hear the kids running, and he convinced himself they weren’t kids. They were Dumbledore’s Army. If they were old enough to proclaim themselves as a fighting group, they were old enough to die as one.  
Dumbledore shouldn’t have recute them that young. The blood and organs covering the floor where on the headmaster’s conscience, not in his. That blood was on the old man’s hands. 

There were other people with shields, some of them trying to approach him. He gritted his teeth and raised his wand again. He was not sure he would be able to physically reach the door if he used more magic, but if he was going to die there, he was going to drag as many members of this new resistance as he could to hell with him.

The fire blood curse shone a vivid purple at the end of his wand, and he was about to start casting it when he felt his skull breaking in two.

For a moment he thought his shield had failed, and he had been hit by a rock, but then his vision blanked, and he was not in the Room of Requirement anymore. A long, dark room flashed behind his eye leads, and then profesor Snape was talking to him.

“-in the castle, I already have a group of Death Eaters patrolling the corridors, those criminals, damned kids got him, but I-“

“Are you telling me, Severus” Harry hissed with his high, cold voice “that the bunch of children who like to… paint my school with their Dumbledore propaganda, the same ones that openly disrespect my Death Eaters now are also able to get into your office, and take… your prisoners… from you?”

Snape’s face was even paler than usual, his thin lips-

Harry blinked, and screamed. His head had to be open, it must be open, he felt like his brain was pulsing inside his skull, and his eyes were full of tears. He tried to held his head between his hands and-

“-and I swear, I swear my Lord, we will find him, he-“

“He is possessed, isn’t he?”

“Get away form him Hector!”

“I’m tired of excuses, Severus. I thought you’d know better.”

“My Lord, please my Lord…”

The last thing Harry saw before he passed out were Neville’s hard eyes on him.

-0-

Harry woke up tied to yet another chair.

The second thing he noticed was that his shoulder had not been properly healed, but it didn’t hurt anymore, at least for now, and that his harm’s cuts had some bandages. So someone had tried too keep him alive, but hadn’t healed him enough to give him a chance to escape. However, they had care enough to clean his clothes, because they didn’t have nearly as much blood as he remembered.  
The person who did this cared, but didn’t want to show it.

The room he was in was too dark to see anything, and the boy flinched when his head brought him a little reminder of what had happened to him. He had been mind-raped. Or at least it felt that way. His occlumecy shields had probably been too weak from that strange drain he had felt earlier, and somehow that had activated the connection with Voldemort’s mind.

He had known from the second he stepped into the other’s mind that this was not something common. The connection didn’t feel smooth, like it normally did when his fiancé and him connected minds. It had been forced, unwelcomed, and agonizing. Harry squeezed his eyes shut at the memory. It was something he really didn’t want to experience again. Ever. 

Something moved outside de room, and he heared someone talking. He could not understand what they were saying, but when the walls of the room moved like a curtain and a messy brown hair enter thorough it he understood that he wasn’t in a real room, it in a tent.

Hermione’s almost to thin face woke him up completely.

Her hair was tied in a pony tale, but he could see it was the dirtiest he had ever seen it. Her clothes were a bit cleaner, but the over use of fregoteo charm on them had erased the colors a bit, and the fabric seemed hard and itchy. A part of Harry wanted to hex them away, angry at this dimension for making him see his friend in such a stated of abandonment. The other part of him was afraid of what she would said to him. Of who she might be, in this dream or reality. Of who she thought he was.

They looked at each other, in silence. Her glaze was hard and angry, almost frustated. He made sure his was blank, not sure how to act around her. His Hermione would never tie him up or leave him with a broken shoulder, so who ever this girl was, she was definitely not her friend. Maybe she would be like Neville, who acted almost exactly like his friend did, or maybe she would be like Ron’s sister, acting so strange that he won’t even recognize the person under Dumbledore’s spell. 

“Who are you?” her tone was cold, and the boy could feel his bones freezing at her stare. He didn’t answer, knowing silence was always the best method to obtain information. 

He had rushed, before. He had been careless, ruthless. He shouldn’t have panicked, but let them talk, and figured out what was exactly going on in this universe. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. His shoulders relaxed and he welcomed the magic binding him to the chair instead of fighting it. Hermione noticed his movement and she frowned, giving her face a wild look.

“I’ll ask again, who are you? And what have you done with Harry Potter?”

He didn’t answer, and her lips formed a thin, white line.

“Are you a Death Eater? Are you working with Snape?”

Harry kept his mouth shut, and she twisted her hands around her wand, still down. For now.

“Don’t make me use veritaserum on you.”

Harry stared at her. So Hermione was different. She was bad a liar. The way she forced the word veritaserum to sound threatening was enough for Harry to know she didn’t have any truth potion. And, apparently, she thought he wasn’t Harry Potter, but someone impresionating him, so the Harry Potter of this world had probably disappeared when Harry came to it. He wondered if that Harry would now be in his own world, and if Dumbledore had planned on manipulating him to fight for the light once Harry died in this reality. Something told him it would not be difficult. 

“You are testing my patience, and don’t think I won´t use my wand on you” the girl raised her arm and Harry saw the tip of her wand shining “Now answer, are you part of You-know-who’s army? Do they have Harry?”

The boy just stared at her some more, and when he saw her opening her lips, ready to curse him, he spoke.

“Are you?”

“What?”

“Are you part of Voldem-“

“SILENCIO!”

Harry’s throat went dry, and he felt the air being taken away form him like he had received a kick on his chest. In the blink of an eye, Hermione’s hands were on his neck and she was screaming at him.

“Did you really thought we would fall for the same trick twice? You won’t pronounce that tabu name on our camp. We are not going to let you lead your master to us!”

The way Hermione said the word master was enough to answer his question. No follower of the Dark Lord would dare to say one of his titles with such disgust.

A small knot was beginning to form in the back of Harry’s throat. Hermione was not loyal to his fiancé, and Hermione knew him. He took a deep breath. This didn’t have to mean anything. Maybe she was not loyal, but she didn’t have to be a rebel. Maybe she was just neutral, like some of ron´s siblings. 

This didn’t mean this world’s Harry was not loyal.

A small shiver runner throw his spine. There was just no world in which Harry and Voldemort would have ended being in opposite sides. He refused to believe something as surrealist as that. He had been waiting to join the Dark Lord’s army since he was seven, Merlin’s bear!

Hermione took a step back, and Harry felt himself breathing again. It was harder than what he had expected, and he wasn’t sure if the reason for his sudden inability to control the shaky state of his hands was caused for the deprivation of oxygen or the realization that he might actually be an enemy of Voldemort. He might be part of the resistance.

Something in his face must have given him away, for Hermione’s features softened a bit.

“I- Har-“ the softness melted away and Harry could almost hear her teeth grinding against each other “No, you are not Harry. You are a murderer. Do you really think Ginny didn’t informed us about your little show in the room of Requirement? You are a murderer and a monster.”

She looked like she was trying to hold back tears, and he couldn’t help himself.

“Why would you call me a monster, when it was Dumbledore who made an army out of a bunch of children? Who would make children play soldiers? Why would you let them belive they are good enough to act like an army when they couldn’t even cast a protego on themselves to literally save their lives? Why are you molding children into soldier saviors when you are not ready to mourn them like martyrs?”

Hermione slapped him across the face, and he smiled. What a déjà vu. Carrow could learn a thing or two from Hermione’s slapping style. It was not breath taking like his had been, but she had a way of making ones face itch after it.

“Is that what you have done to Harry? You have turned him in a martyr? You took my friend to Him?” 

He looked at her, not really getting why they where so obsessed with this other world him. They should know Voldemort wouldn’t kill his own horcrux, so why would they be so preoccupied about him? Was he really important enough that he would have been took to the Dark Lord personally? 

He would understood this reactions if he was still Voldemort’s… something. Harry had never thought about his death, knowing that it would probably never be a possibility for him, if his personal Dark Lord had anything to say about it, but he suspected that Voldemort would prefer that, if he ever died, he would die by the Lord’s hands. He was that type of possessive creep.

But Hermione had been clear in that neither her or Potter had any relationship with the man. Maybe he had been a Death Eater, but he had turned to the light side? That calmed him. That was probably it. There was no way he wouldn’t have joined Voldemort as soon as he was allowed to enter the magic world.

After all, Marvolo had been with him since he was a little child, telling him all the wonder his main soul would show to Harry when he entered his real world, the one where he belonged. A world full of magic, so different from their little cupboard under the stairs.  
Yes, that was probably it. They thought Harry had been killed because he was a traitor. They wanted him back because… they had grown attached to him? That didn’t really make sense. Harry’s eyes found Hermione’s, and he knew that witch would not fight this hard for someone who had been in the other side of the game.

Harry’s mind was working as fast as it could, but…

What the hell had happened in that universe?

“Answer. Answer the question!” Hermione’s voice cracked. She looked desperate. The high pitched sound that had tainted her words apparently disturbed her, and her hands started trembling. Harry tensed, knowing what that look meant. Hermione was preparing herself to use violence against him. “Tell me where Harry Potter is. Don’t-“

“Don’t what? What is a frightened little mudblood like you going to do to me?”

He shouldn’t have spoken. The cutting hex left Hermione’s lips almost like it had been an accident.

Harry felt the cuts in his face, and his world turned red. His magic was not closing his wounds, and the blood filled his eyes.  
“What-?”

The next spell made his blood cold. Literally. Harry blinked, and searched for Hermione’s eyes, but moving his head turned to be a task too difficult to carry it out. His heart started to slow down while his blood began to move slower. Suddenly he couldn’t breath. The oxygen was not reaching his lungs. He opened his mouth and gasped loudly. He couldn’t breath.

“Where is he.”

Harry’s hands where now ice cold. 

“How can you look so much like him? It’s not polijuce potion, it does not last this long, so explain”

“Hermione…”

“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare look at me with the face of my friend, murdered! Have you killed him? Is that what happened? ANSWER ME, REVELIO!”

Nothing happened. Harry’s face did not change, and somehow that made Hermione snap.

“Finite incantatum! Specialis Revelio! 

“Furnunculus!”

Harry was blind. He was screaming, and the pain made his body shake and shiver like if he was being burned alive. His mind felt out of focus, and the pain in the back of his mind tingled. His occlumecy walls were about to fall. The pain was making them collapse. He could see a face, deformed in horror and- 

“Cornium excorticare!”

He would have bit his lip until drowning blood, but he was too coupled howling to do so.

“THAT’S ENOUGH”

The pain stopped, and Harry’s mind walls returned to their place.

“HERMIONE, STOP!”

“Get out of my way, Ronald Weasley. Get out of my way right now if you don’t want to be knocked out until the end of days”

Harry knew he should pay attention. Ron was there, his friend, Ron was standing in front of him, shielding from Hermione’s eyes. He tried to talk, but his throat was dry and in throbbed painfully. Ron was-

“I get that we need information, but I would not stand outside this tent while you skin this bloke alive, Hermione, Merlin’s flying BALLS.” Ron’s voice was vibrating in rage “How could you do something like this, this is something a Death Eater would do, not us!”

“Well, maybe is just something you don’t have the flying balls to do! I told you to stay outside, I told you I would take care of it-“

“You said it would be an interrogation! You said you might have to use some harmful jinxes, but you never said you would go and use dark torture curses on him!”

“DON’T YOU THINK I WANT TO DO IT?! DO YOU THINK I’M ENJOYING THIS?! I HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING RON! EVERYTHING!”

“SO NOW ARE JUST TRYING TO TEAR HIS WHOLE FACE OFF?”

“SHUT UP!”

Even in his half-allucinating state of mind -he was sure he could still see through Voldemort’s eyes if he closed his eyelids for a second longer than a blink- Harry could tell Hermione had just brushed into tears.

“I- I waited to see if it was polijuce” She cried, hiding her face with her bruised and dirt covered hands “And while he was asleep in performed every spell it know to track Harry, but it- there is just him Ron.”

She whimpered, and looked at Ron between her tears. 

“I can´t find Harry, because the spell keeps telling me he is already here!”

The boy tried to walk towards her, and she took a small step back, as if she was afraid of Ron touching her.

“So I thought he might be possessed?” She continued, looking anywhere but the faces of the two other occupants of the room “And I tried all the spells in the ‘Minds Arts and Rituals’ but nothing happened? And he woke up, and it was not a glamour, and I could only think of poor Colin Creevey, smashed in the floor of the Room of Requirement, and I could not look at Harry’s face. I could not…”  
Harry opened his mouth in a natural response to his friend’s distress. Hermione looked so lost, so utterly heart broken he was having trouble breathing again, and it didn’t have anything to do with any blood thickening spell. He couldn’t recall the last time Hermione had cried in front of him and he hadn’t been holding her.

Ron was the one to run towards her when she fell to the floor, tears running down her face and sobs scaping his lips like she had been containing them for years. 

Harry saw them hugging in the floor and the blood in his face felt cold against his skin. They looked so much like his friends it hurt.  
“It’s okay, Hermione. I know. But we are better than this.”

-0-

“Why are you doing this? You know I’m not-“

“Man, Hermione is the brightest person I’ve ever met, but when it comes to magic… she just doesn’t get it, sometimes. She has a very muggle way of focusing on it. But you didn’t hear it from me.”

Ronald Weasley, who in this reality was not his second in command but apparently his kind of sidekick, was healing his wounds one by one.

“Episkey” he whispered against the skin on his back. The open flesh raised and placed in its rightful place with a pained hiss from Harry. 

“I still- I mean-“

“Look mate, she said she has tried every spell she could think of on you, and you still won’t show your real face. The answer is simple, but she -and don’t tell her I said this, or we will be both dead tomorrow morning- has a very muggle way of understanding magic. Magic is not a trial and error thing. If she has tried everything, then there is nothing else to try, since she is more than powerful enough to remove any spell you could have casted on your self. If nothing works, it’s because nothing is supposed to work. You must be Harry Potter.”

Harry almost laughed. That was the kind of response the Ron in his world would appreciate. If something does not get fixed, it’s because it’s not broken. Ron looked at him with a strange glimmer in his eyes, but that only made Harry’s grin grow. Finding something familiar to him in that world so strange made him want to laugh. It was like a bad joke, where everything was just alike enough to make him doubt if he was really in another world. 

The laugh made him realize just how tired he was. After thinking about it, he had accepted that it was probably dumbledor´s potion weaking him, but he still whiseh it would just go away.

“You really shouldn’t laugh” Ron pointed out “Hermione might be sleeping but I don’t think she would like to be woke up from out prisoner’s laughter of all things. She might actually kill me.”

Harry stopped grinning and looked at him. This Ron’s face was thinner, just like Hermione’s. He was less muscular than his Ron, and his hair looked even longer than usual. His clothes where in the same terrible state as Hermione’s, but his looked like he had given them an actual wash in at least the last month. That was strange. One would think Hermione would be the one with cleaner robs.  
Ron didn’t held his gaze, too occupied cleaning his wounds.

“Holy hell Harry how in- no.” His voice turned harder, and Harry just knew he has clunching his teeth “I don’t really want to know it.”  
Harry knew what the read headed had been about to ask. ‘how did you get so much dirt and blood on you?’.

‘Well Ron dear,’ he imagined himself responding ‘it’s probably from that moment in which I blew up the entire Room of Requirement, and turned some of your apparent friends into limb and blood jelly.”

Probably not a smart idea.

Instead, he just stared at his somehow friend red hair until he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Harry, mate, I’d appreciated if you stopped trying to open my skull with a glare. If I’m hurting you is pretty much your fault-“  
“I’m not Harry. At least not the Harry you think. Not your Harry.

For a moment Ron just froze, his head still down, looking at Harry’s wounded side and the wand raised. Then the moment passed and helooked up.

He searched Harry’s eyes, and they stared and each other for a long time. Ron’s eyes where firm, but not hard like Hermione’s had been. He looked oddly determinated and Harry could not start to imagine what was going to happen next. What he was going to do. What he saw when he looked into Harry’s eyes. Because Harry did not see his best friend, but someone who was a foggy reflection of him. The essence was there… but something was undeniably off.

Ron stared at him, and if Harry wasn’t still tangled in ropes he would have swear Ron was trying to pin him to the chair with his glare only. His wand started moving across Harry’s back again.

“You must be Harry Potter.” He repeated, as if he needed a confirmation for himself “And I might not be anything special on my own, but I am Ron Weasley, and Harry Potter is my best friend. I have already let you down enough times in my life, Harry. I promised I wouldn’t do it again, and that’s what I’m doing. Not letting you down.”

Harry blinked. Ron. 

“You are a good friend Ron” He cursed himself. He shouldn’t be bonding with his captors damn it. That was a pretty basic rule in survival 101.

“Not as good as I’d like. My mother was so pissed when I went back. She wouldn’t say it, but she was worried about you and Hermione. I abandoned you.”

Harry wasn’t sure what was happening. Apparently They had been on the run? And Ron left them? Well, considering just how tired, dirty and hungry both Hermione and Ron looked he couldn’t really blame his friend. 

No. Not his friend. Keep it together Potter.

“But you came back. You abandoned your family for me. Here… and where I come from, too. That sounds like a pretty good friend to me.”

Ron stared at him. It took Harry a few seconds to realize what he had just said.

“Damn” the red-haired boy sight “Dimension travel? I was hoping it was just some kind of memory loose. Holy shit Harry. Only you, I swear.”

He sat on the floor, and covered his face with his hands. For a second he looked so much like Hermione his chest ached. Silence spread between the two once again, and Harry knew Ron was trying to process the fact that in some reality Harry knew enough dark magic to be categorized as a dark wizard the needed to be tortured. He was probably also thinking about how many times Harry had killed kids like that Colin boy Hermione had talked about.

He was probably feeling the same knot in he himself had in his throat when he realized that both Ron and Hermione were probably working for the rebels. 

“I don´t kill children, you know? Never had, before. The ceiling was just the easiest option to distract them.” 

Ron didnt look at him. Silence fell in the room, and Harry wasn´t sure he wanted an answer at all.

“I didn’t come back just for you, you know?” Whatever Harry was expecting to hear form Ron, that was certainly not in the list. “I was pretty mad at you. And the only reason I was able to return was Hermione. The power of love, I guess.”

Ron let a dry laugh scape his throat, looking up at Harry with a strange spark in his eyes, and Harry froze. No in fear, and surprisingly enough not in pain either. He was just utterly and completely shocked. Love?

“Excuse me?”

Ron blushed, his ears turning red at the tips, and a goofy smile stretched his face. He looked like the epitome of a love-strucked school girl. 

“Well… I’ve wanted to say it out loud for quite some time, but I’ve always been afraid to tell you… I mean not you, so that’s why I’m telling you now, because you obviously don’t have a crush on her. I-I think I love her. Like, really love her.” His smile fell, and he avoided looking at Harry in the eye "But she doesn’t like me that much, at least not anymore. She is pretty mad at me for leaving… and I think she is a bit in love with you, honestly”

Harry stared at his friend -no, not his friend- in horror. He liked, loved…

“But she-“ He bit his tongue before he could finish. ´But she is a mudblood´.

Just another proof of how different things where in this place. His Hermione was considered and outstanding mudblood. A smart, talented and strong-willed mudblood, but a mudblood. She had one of the most important jobs anyone could apply for, and she was pleased to be the first mudblood to hold it since the beginning of the Dark Lord’s regime. She worked hard to prove she deserved it, and even harder to open new opportunities to other other mudbloods, but she was an exception. She was Harry’s friend.

Hermione Jane Granger was the most privileged mudblood in the country, and it was mainly because she was friends with one of the rulers.

Of course she was gifted, of curse she had competed with both halfbloods and even purebloods to get the undersecretary position, but she had been the only mudblood allowed to apply. 

Hermione had a constant fight with herself about it. She liked being the first, helping other to get opportunities, using her privilege in the right way -she had told Harry that much- but she had strong be lives about right and wrong. About equality and how to achieve it. Her logic never failed to make Voldemort laugh.

Yes, Hermione was smart and dedicated and incredible to be around, but the Ron in his world would have never, ever made such and statement. Love.

Mudbloods might not be persecuted anymore, but they were the base of the food chain. They held a very low social status. The most Hermione would -and could- aspire to was marrying another mudblood, or maybe a low halfblood. Maybe, if she used her contacts and position wisely, even a decent halfblood from some not so well known family. But a pureblood? And some with a blood as ancient as a Weasley? Never. The lords would not allow it.

Harry locked eyes with the strange, paler version of his best friend and wondered if his Ron had ever looked at his Hermione from the distance with the long the could see in this boy’s eyes.

Something told him he had.

-0-

That night, Harry run away. It wasn’t difficult to break the magic bounds now that he was rested, his wounds here not throbbing and his head was not breaking in half. Still, it took him longer than what he expected, his magic felt heavy inside of him, like it had better things to do than being at his disposal. 

He made a quiet exist, and for a second he saw Hermione, pale and dirty and cold, sitting against what he supposed was the main tent, arms crossed around her knees. She was probably doing the night guard. He did not approach her. His skin was still a light shade of pink form her curses and his heart was still swollen. Images of her, and his own Hermione mixed behind his eye leads and he wasn’t sure what he would do if she aimed her wand at him again. He didn’t want find out, either. He prepared for apparition, and left just in time to hear her sob his name.

-0-

Harry knew what he had to do. Finding Voldemort was plan A, B, C, and E. Plan D was dangerous and suicidal, but then again he wasn’t sure if finding his fiancé was flirting with death, too.

Of course, he only had to approach him, and kiss him. He was sure Dumbledore had never said anything about “a true love kiss” or any other stupid suggestion. Harry has sure he wouldn´t be able to make the man fall in love with him in three days, when it had took him almost three years to crawl into the Dark Lord’s bed. 

But he could get a kiss, he was sure of that. Strategy was key. Give him something he wanted.

Harry mentally slapped himself when his imagination provided him with a couple of things he could offer. Maybe he could show him how nicely he kneeled-

He stopped walking. His imagination tented to get a bit wild after battles. The adrenaline made him feel bold and daring, and the lost of blood made him light-headed and hot all over. Voldemort always laughed when he demanded to fuck after any sort of magic-draining experience. Such Gryffindor impulses, Harry. Such and easily pleased little lion…

Harry shivered. Voldemort took pride in the fact that he was a Slytherin, but somehow knowing that the sorting hat almost put him in Gryffindor made the Dark Lord incredibly pleased. The use of his ‘nickname’ was never followed by innocent hours. 

The ice cold wind made sure he remembered where he was. Harry rubbed his hands together and took Draco’s hand out of his boot. He was lucky the blond’s magic was in tune with his own, or he wouldn’t have been able to summoned it back from Ron and Hermione´s camp. 

The forest was still quite cold at this time of the year, but a quick heating spell was all he needed to make sure he wouldn’t freeze during meditation. If he wanted to find Voldemort, he might as well start by contacting Marvolo first. The horcrux had helped him find the Dark Lord once, all those years ago. He just needed to wake him up.

He sat crossed legged and emptied his mind until the only sound he could hear was his own heart beat. When he closed his eyes, he sat in a white bench.

Harry stood up. This was new.

The inside of his mind was normally presented as a nice room with no cealing or walls at the top a hill. This place looked strange to him, but at the same time, oddly familiar.

It took him and embarrassing long time to recognize Kings Cross station. He wasn’t sure if that was bad or not. He wasn’t really sure of anything anymore. He felt quite childish, but right now he only wanted to sleep in his bed and maybe cuddle a bit. His magically healed back was itchy and his feet too cold.

Then he stopped freaking out about the fact that the insides of his mind where completely wrong and started to search for Marvolo. He was not going to let this world make him panic again. He was going to fix everything, and then proceed to find the worst torture methods that had any effect at all on magic portraits.

The room -station- looked unsettlingly empty. Harry almost jumped out of his skin when he passed by one of the many dark corridors and a strange scratching sound reached his ears. He faced the dark space, and tried to see what was in there. The sound seemed to get louder the longer he inspected the pitch black shadows, as if was getting anxious with every second that passed. The more Harry looked, the more attention he gave it, the louder and more obvious it got.

Or maybe, the more he focused on it, the easier it was to hear it.

“Is there something in there?”

The scratching sound was almost furious now. Like an animal. Harry took a small step towards the corridor, and his voice trembled a bit. This felt like a strangers mind, and something was trying to rip the very edges of it.

“I said. Is there something in there?”

The sound of something crushing against a wall made him retreat immediately.

“Marvolo? Is that you?”

As if it had been struck by a lightning, the sound stopped. And Harry knew it had to be him.

“Marvolo, it’s me. It’s okay I down know what happened but-“

His feet carried him right to the corridor. He dint care about the station, the whiteness, or his freezing toes. Marvolo was here with him, so he jumped right into the shadows and let them eat him whole.

“Marvolo! Marvolo, I’m here!” He was almost running, calling the horcrux name out loud until his sored throat tingled with the memory of his two beautiful torture sessions. And then he crushed face first with a transparent wall of magic.

He managed not to hit the floor, and frowned. This was his magic. 

He could feel it, caressing the hand he had on the glass-like barrier like it had been so long since the last time it had seen him. His mouth hanged opened for a bit. 

All that tiredness. The problems with his magic. His incredibly slow recovery. 

He had thought Dumbledore had just hit him with some nasty curse but apparently the answer was much simpler. The problem was not his magic. The problem was this other Harry’s magic.

Harry pressed both his hands on the wall, and felt the sparks of magic tingling around his fingers. His magic was greeting him, happy and excited and… trapped. His magic had not responded how it should have because it was trapped there, creating that strange wall inside his mind.

A wall.

Harry’s heart ached. He knew what was on the other side of that wall. 

“Marvolo?” he asked to quiet darkness, fearful of both the possibility of an answer or the lack of it. He knew what was hiding in there. But did he?

“Marvolo? It’s me…” He whispered “It’s Harry”

Another face smashed right into the glass at the sound of his name.

Harry took a couple of steps back, terrified. The dark figure crashed against the magic wall one more time and it screamed. The dark, hate filled eyes of Tom Marvolo Riddle fixated on him and the horcrux roared. His hands started to scratch the wall with an awful sound, and Harry saw how his fingers clawed at the magic until they stared to leave small lines of blood behind them. The young and beautiful features where deformed on a grotesque wince, his mouth full of spit and teeth like a dog with rabies. His body was long and dark in such way that harry could barely see when the the darkness ended and the horcrux face started.

And suddenly Harry got the feeling that Marvolo was not hiding in the shadows behind a magic wall. The shadows and the magic wall had been hiding him.

There was an echo of the screams in Harry’s ears, and he watched with horror how the horcrux pressed his nails against the wall until they fell, and the only thing he could see was blood, darkness and a crazy glare.

He also catched someone screaming, and when he realized it was him, his head seem to break in two.

He fell to his knees; still screaming and somehow crying and Marvolo’s movements became erratic and furious, like the only thing he could think of, the only thing it desired, was to break the barrier and claw at his flesh to skin him alive.

Harry passed out.

-0-

“I’m so sorry… it will not happen again! I swear!”

“Oh, of course it would not happen again, boy! I’m going to call your uncle right now and make sure of it!”

No, he can’t let her call Uncle Vernon, he can’t! He has been grounded the whole weekend and he hasn’t ’t been allowed to eat in two days. His belly will soon star to make hungry noises and hurting again if he doesn’t have anything to eat tonight 

“Please, I was hungry I wanted-”

“I will not allow stealing in this school!”

-0-

“You know what would be awesome, matewe in the World Cup. Now that’s what I call a good summer. Fresh air, no homework, and lots of quidditch. The good life, Harry. The good old life”

“Well maybe ‘the good old life’ should write more and talk less, if you want to at least pass the class you should finish that paper, Ron!”  
“You are no fun, Hermione. No fun.”

“Shut up Harry.”

-0-

He is running away from Duddley, but he knows he was going to get caught. This is another game of Harry Hunting in which he gets hunted, and killed, and served on a silver plated to his cousin and his friends.

“Run Potter! Let us see if you can keep us entertained for a bit longer!”

And Harry runs.

The next thing he knows he is cornered in a death end part of the school with no way out. He sees Michel Brookes turning around the corner and before he can panic, he feels his feet lifting from the ground. He ends up staring at him from the stop of the roof.

-0-

Cho is kissing him, and it is pleasant. Not exactly good, not bad either, and maybe his toes do curl a bit but over all it is…

Wet.

Wait what?

-0-

He is caressing his patronus , a beautiful stag made of love, friendship and everything that proves he is human and good and he has never felt more alive than right now.

-0-

“After everything we have done for you, we took you into our own home! We let you share our food and dress you and give you and education! How dare you insinuate we are anything but the kindest people in the world to you!”

His arm hurts, and aunt Petunia is gripping his hair so hard he thinks maybe he is trying to remove it from his head.

“But… but there is a h-huge thing hanging from the ceiling aunt!” He cries “Don’t make me sleep in there tonight aunt, I can sleep on the floor! I promise I won’t get anything from the kitchen, or…”

“As if I would belive a freak like you would not try and take something form my kitchen! Do you think I’m stupid? Is that it?”

He can see the cupboard door opening and he cries harder. He is shoved inside and the claws at the door while aunt Petunia locks it.  
“Please, please let me out aunt!”

“SHUT UP!” uncle Vernon’s voice comes from upstairs, and he winces. His eyes get used to the small light that comes from the outside and now he sees it. There is a strange sac hanging right above him. He woke up one day and saw it, a division it just got bigger and bigger until it terrified him. The cupboard is too small to stay away from it.

“Please” He repited weakly “Please I don’t want to be here”

His aunt bangs on the door to shut him up and goes upstairs. The thing moves dangerously above his head.

“Go to sleep Duddy-mine” she says “I took care of everything.”

“Please!” He yells.

“Dad told you to shut up!”

Dudley is jumping on top of his cupboard. Dust is falling form the ceiling and he knows. It’s going to fall- it’s-

He scratches at the door, panic and terror filling his mind. Please don’t. Please open. Please, please… he is crying, a the doors remains locked when the spider nest falls on his head-

Wait, no. The door opened. Marvol- What is…

The thing crushes right on his hair and suddenly he feels millions of little things running down his face. He crushes his eyes closed and tries to cover his ears and his nose because they are crawling allover him and there are getting inside his two sizes-big clothes and he can’t scream because if he opens his mouth they will get inside if him, too.

He feels them on his back, on his hair, hanging from his lashes and running up his legs. And he can’t move because the cupboard is too small and they are everywhere and his whole body itches.

So he cries and whimpers and screams his lungs raw inside of his mind until morning comes and he is no longer afraid of spiders.

-0-

There is a scream, and a green light, and then everything is black again.

-0-

He is on a bed, and he is being kissed. He moans into it because -yes. If this is how kisses are supposed to feel then he doesn’t want To ever stop kissing. His body arches into the other’s touch without his permission and he gets a smug smile pressed against his lips. Voldemort whispers his name and he melts under the mouth caressing his neck. 

He is clothed, something that needs to be fixed as soon as possible, and claws for a bit on the Dark Lord’s shoulders. He wants him closer, needs him closer… -but he can’t, not now, what will happen if they are discovered? What will happen if they use her to get to him?

A lovely smell of flowers tickels his nose when long, smooth hair falls over his face. 

He opens his eyes and Ginny Weasley is starting at him with adoration.

-0-

He is dreaming. That’s the only explanation he can come up with. He is dreaming about this other Harry’s memories, and he is feeling them as if they were his own. 

-0-

Harry wakes up crying, and he doesn’t even know why. His chest feels empty and it shouldn’t. There is nothing real in what he is feeling. These are not his memories and these are not his people.

His body is cold, heat charm gone when he passed out and was unable to control his own magic.

He stays there and cries for the rebel Sirius Black until the sun comes up anyway. Apparently, he was his godfather.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I sent Harry to The Deathly Hallows canon. It will be explained, but for now I´ll tell you something: the whole mystery is in this chapter. The reason canon Harry and the other Harry´s worlds are different is in here. Let´s see if you can find it.


End file.
